If cinema is dead, there is probably a murderer! It may be the talent agents who demand enormous fees disproportionate to French film budgets. Cameron knows this and uses virtual actors, the dream of Richard Bohringer. Or maybe the SFX that have sputtered the movies with laser gun shots.
But the cause it can also be something much less dramatic: the downward pressure constantly exerted by marketing on the cinema soul, selling more and more crap to younger and younger kids.
Of course, cinema is still producing good and even excellent films like Xavier Beauvois “Men and Gods”, a masterpiece.
It would be absurd to deny it: the cultural dominance of cinema has gone forever. The cinema no longer plays a central role in young people ; they are in such a whirl of moving pictures, television, computer, game console, phone, that the big screen for them is one thing which floats in the distance, a spectral presence which the great new show alone can awaken.
In a sense, the new 3D film wave gives a shrewd circularity to the cinema growth and decline process. The cinema began as a pure and simple show, where legend has it that the first audiences were terrified by the image of a train rushing toward them. Today Hollywood is trying to inspire this ancient awe with 3D, but unfortunately for the studios, the public, even young children, is far too evolved to be caught. I heard 8-year kids, rather blasé, saying that they prefer to see things in 2D!
The cinema has lost its ability to amaze and its social significance.
One thing there is unfortunate, the disappearance of a collective experience, at the time when there were only three television channels: people were all watching the same programs and talked about afterwards. Until the 80s, you could be sure that everyone had seen the same movies at about the same time.
I rather hope that the cinema will end up, like the theater, as a mode of expression, certainly secondary, but revered and providing original works.
A perfect projection, in a quiet theater, with a super sound to enter the world of the film, that's what I wish you for this new year.
M. D.
But the cause it can also be something much less dramatic: the downward pressure constantly exerted by marketing on the cinema soul, selling more and more crap to younger and younger kids.
Of course, cinema is still producing good and even excellent films like Xavier Beauvois “Men and Gods”, a masterpiece.
It would be absurd to deny it: the cultural dominance of cinema has gone forever. The cinema no longer plays a central role in young people ; they are in such a whirl of moving pictures, television, computer, game console, phone, that the big screen for them is one thing which floats in the distance, a spectral presence which the great new show alone can awaken.
In a sense, the new 3D film wave gives a shrewd circularity to the cinema growth and decline process. The cinema began as a pure and simple show, where legend has it that the first audiences were terrified by the image of a train rushing toward them. Today Hollywood is trying to inspire this ancient awe with 3D, but unfortunately for the studios, the public, even young children, is far too evolved to be caught. I heard 8-year kids, rather blasé, saying that they prefer to see things in 2D!
The cinema has lost its ability to amaze and its social significance.
One thing there is unfortunate, the disappearance of a collective experience, at the time when there were only three television channels: people were all watching the same programs and talked about afterwards. Until the 80s, you could be sure that everyone had seen the same movies at about the same time.
I rather hope that the cinema will end up, like the theater, as a mode of expression, certainly secondary, but revered and providing original works.
A perfect projection, in a quiet theater, with a super sound to enter the world of the film, that's what I wish you for this new year.
M. D.
